Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:53 pm Post subject: There are two shows on tv about infuriatingly stupid people

Like, shows that document levels of stupidity so god damned unbelievably extreme that it makes you angry just to watch it. These are shows that are made popular because they are giant train wrecks filmed in slow motion on camera.

One of these shows is Bridezilla. Let us not talk about Bridezilla.

The other one is WHALE WARS and let us talk about that.

WHALE WARS is a documentary about eco-terrorists. It is also a grotesque comedy designed to make you curl up in horrific-feeling pity and embarrasment over the foibles of tragically clueless people. Like The Office, or Arrested Development. Except Whale Wars is real. The Office and Arrested Development are not real. They are fictional stories, involving excellent actors who do their goddamndest to act a fraction as clueless as the people in WHALE WARS are in real life. And they are, in real life, so dumb that it seems impossible that they have not all died from it. And they have a ship. A ship.

THE PEOPLE IN WHALE WARS ARE SO GODDAMNED STUPID IT MAKES YOU ANGRY. THE ENTIRE SHOW IS A DOCUMENTARY OF PEOPLE BEING SO STUPID IT MAKES YOU WANT TO STRANGLE THEM ARRRGH FSJKSFJKSJFSKJF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

okay so a backstory. This is an animal planet show about a group of eco-radicals who are charitably described by Greenpeace as being "completely fucking batshit" and who have a boat they call the Steve Irwin. It is captained by this guy named Paul Watson who is by and large the most incompetent sack of shit I have ever seen command any vessel. He is not fit to pull an empty wagon and you watch him futz around and make whimpering noises as he attempts to manage an entire goddamned ship. My uncle would have an aneurysm trying to watch this show what with him actually being a captain but seriously I live in a landlocked state and even I am not that far behind. Paul Watson's criminal negligence as a captain is enough to make my ears bleed. Entire articles have been written in newspapers about how the show is abhorrent less for its eco-terrorism but just basically that the crew is not seaworthy, the captain is an ignorant, impulsive, clueless eco-radical who constantly puts the crew at risk.

Within the first five episodes, the eco-guardians deliberately boarded another ship. the japanese whale catcher Yushin Maru, without consent, while flying pirate colors. The crew of this ship that had been boarded without consent, detained the people who came onto their ship. then the crew of the ec-guardian ship whined to the international community that the people who boarded the ship are now being held "hostage"

The first mate goes "Okay so they have our crew 'hostage,' and they refuse to give them back, so we are going to stage a NITE ATTACK."

The night attack is cramming four crewmembers into an inflatable boat in the frigid arctic, pointing them in the ostensible direction of where the japanese vessel is, then only later on deciding to send up a pilot to see if they can't find where the vessel actually is. The pilot goes up, surveys the area, finds the vessel, and informs the crew that the rescue squad has been sent in the completely wrong direction (and you could SEE the ship, too, but we won't talk about that). Then the boat gets lost and they lose radio contact. Then as they struggle to find their inflatable boat that they sent out to get lost at sea because they hadn't yet figured out which direction they could send it that would result in it encountering another ship, they decide another japanese ship is tailing them and it's time to attack THAT ship instead.

Except they can't attack the ship because these people are completely incompetent and they cannot manage their own ship and they are constantly unable to deal with things breaking down because they aren't well-trained crew at all, okay, but the plan was to board this other vessel and break its communication equipment, but they never get to try out this scheme because everything on the ship (the crane, their helicopter, all but one of their engines) is breaking, so they dock in melbourne, and, like, half the crew goes "fuck it, we're outta here" so they have to refill their ranks with even stupider eco-radicals, so that the ship can go back out to sea, discover it is still being tailed by a ship that keeps the other ships far far away from them, and while they began formulating their obviously genius new plan to board this ship and hit it with rocks or something, the entire ship has an electrical failure. So they spend some time drifting aimlessly through an iceberg field without engines before hacking their electrical system back together in time to throw stink bombs onboard a whaling ship. while they are busy throwing stink bombs onto this ship the captain pretends he's been shot.

Then they run out of fuel, go home, and claim they have saved five hunnnndred whaaaaaaaaales, WHALEWARS.

Anyway that was just the FIRST season. You are not prepared for season two. NO ONE IS PREPARED FOR SEASON TWO. Season two makes them look like geniuses in season one. And this is going on RIGHT NOW.

^^^ BONUS STORY ON THAT ONE: The cameraman drops his camera and leaves because what is going on is so unimaginably stupid that he does not want to drown and he thinks it is incredibly likely. WHALEWARS.

I've ranted about Whale Wars in other places. They're so remarkably inept that, you know, you have to wonder how they haven't died or been imprisoned or both. And I only caught part of one episode. It was that painfully clear.

They're PETA on a boat and pretending they have this mandate to attack other boats but aren't smart enough to pull it off._________________

I've watched the show a couple times, and the last one I watched was the one where they were going through the ice field and showing the hull. Yes, the hull might break at any moment...LET'S SIT HERE AND WATCH IT BULGE AND CRACK! THIS IS COMPLETELY SAFE!_________________Eureka00: "Reminding you of your addictions" since 1982.

Well, to be fair, if you had a captain who knew what the fuck he was doing, he wouldn't go attacking other ships on the high seas (and exactly what did they intend to attack the other ships with?). So you can see the dilemma the producers were in.

When I think about it I kind of do want to see a show where they give 40 Hims a ship and tell them "capitalism is ... in the sea over there, go fight it or something"

They both claim they've been attacked 'ad hominem', I just wish Him would quote Theodore Roosevelt more._________________Once, at a local NOW meeting where I was the only male among about a dozen women, a feminism trivia contest was held. I came in third.